The present disclosure relates to an article dispensing apparatus.
In vending machines that sell articles such as canned beverages and PET-bottled beverages, an article storage rack has been conventionally provided in an article storage inside a main body cabinet as a vending machine main body. The article storage rack has article storage passages extending in an up-and-down direction and article discharging apparatuses arranged at the lower part of the article storage passages.
The article discharging apparatus includes a lower pedal and an upper pedal. The lower pedal and the upper pedal are linked with an AC solenoid as an actuator via links and advance and retract to and from the article storage passage as appropriate through the energization of the AC solenoid.
In such an article discharging apparatus, in a standby state, the upper pedal is retracted from the article storage passage, whereas the lower pedal is advanced to the article storage passage. With this configuration, the lower pedal comes into contact with the lowermost article stored in the article storage passage, thereby preventing articles stored in the article storage passage from moving downward.
When a discharging instruction for an article is given, in the article discharging apparatus at the lower part of the article storage passage that stores therein a corresponding article, the AC solenoid is energized, whereby the upper pedal advances to the article storage passage via the link to come into contact with the second lowermost article, thereby preventing the article and articles stored above the article from moving downward. In addition, the AC solenoid is energized, whereby the lower pedal retracts from the article storage passage, only the lowermost article is discharged downward, and when the article slips through the lower pedal, the lower pedal advances to the article storage passage by the biasing force of a spring. After that, when the energized state of the AC solenoid is released to be a non-energized state, the lower pedal that has advanced to the article storage passage is prevented from retracting, and the upper pedal has retracted from the article storage passage, thereby returning to the standby state.
The article discharging apparatus includes an out-of-stock detection lever and an out-of-stock detection switch in addition to the pedals. The out-of-stock detection lever is swingably arranged in an area above the upper pedal in such a manner as to advance and retract to and from the article storage passage, and is biased to advance to the article storage passage by a biasing unit. When articles are present in the article storage passage, the out-of-stock detection lever is retracted due to the articles from the article storage passage against the biasing force of the biasing unit.
The out-of-stock detection switch is linked to the out-of-stock detection lever, and is turned to an off state when the out-of-stock detection lever retracts from the article storage passage, and is turned to an on state when the out-of-stock detection lever advances to the article storage passage. The out-of-stock detection switch outputs an out-of-stock signal when it is turned to the on state, which indicates that articles in the article storage passage are out of stock (see, for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-188953).